sing me a sweet siren remedy
by blue rain rhapsody
Summary: Someday you'll wake and find me gone/but light will finally break into everlasting dawn ;; When you are hiding dreams and stealing memories, sometimes you regret ever getting them back. Winner of Phoenix Awards Round Ten.


**_title_**: sing me a sweet siren remedy

**_rating_**: T [character death (lots of it), adult themes maybe I guess it depends how you interpret it]

**_disclaimer_**: rick riordan owns these characters mentioned below

**_pairing_**: mostly a onesided leo/piper, mentions of frank/hazel, piper/jason, percy/annabeth

done for _Phoenix Awards Cup of Tea #3 (Edit: Winner for Phoenix Awards Round Ten- Thanks so much! )_

**_a/n_**- okay this is _all _charlie's fault (notyourleo) because he's the one that introduced me to this challenge. all your fault charlie. which is why I dragged along fran with me (intartarus) and she has her own she's gonna write and then the three of us will rule the world with our fanfiction powers mwahaha! the theme this time was 'apocalypse' and kind of what would happen if the demigods lost the war. this is kinda what I see happening, along with everyone dying. _(honestly I like charlie's much better sorry) _  
as to what to explain, assume everyone you love is dead. now imagine them being stuck in purgatory and not knowing they are stuck there. that's pretty much this.  
the poem/song between the lines is written by me. enjoy death.

* * *

**_sing me a sweet siren remedy_**

* * *

_whisper me a broken sound_

_when darkness breaks me free_

* * *

"Aren't you worried about the quest?" she asked, threading her hands into his. "The prophecy, '_to storm or fire the world must fall._' Don't lie, we all know that's about you. You can tell me anything."

He tried to shrug it off and placed his head on her shoulder instead. "I try not to think about it. I'm kinda hoping there's some other guy at this Roman camp with fire powers like me."

She laughed and kissed his cheek. "You keep wishing on that, for one, I can only handle so much of you. I don't know about _two _ of you." She shuddered as if to voice her disgust.

He grinned. "There's always enough of me to go around." He spun her around once and pecked her lips. "Now go away, I need to concentrate."

"I'll be with Annabeth," she shrugged him away.

(She appeared in his dreams, all the time, in his greatest and wildest dreams that they might have been the happy ones. That he might have had her. And sometimes, his dreams and nightmares of her, was the only remedy he had to dull it. Because once he remembered her-

he couldn't forget.)

* * *

_although I might be lost from you_

_be steadfast and strong, love, for me_

* * *

_Wake up_, he told himself. _Wake up._

Ice shattered beneath his feet. Somewhere, far off, but not too far, he heard the others screaming. "_Get back! Don't go down there, she's gone!_"

He might have laughed at them._ No one is ever gone_, he thought. _Except the ones I loved._

More ice cracked. Water sprung up from a crack and soon formed a lake of water. His shoes were soaked instantly. A cold numbing feeling spread through his toes, almost welcoming him into a deep sleep. He wondered if the snow would make a fine pillow, just to kneel down, surrender, sleep forever.

_Lie down_, the ground rumbled. _Just take a short nap. You are tired, hero._

_I am_, he agreed wearily. _I am very, very tired. But I will never surrender to you._

He turned one last time to his friends, hanging over the side of the ship, one of them stepping cautiously onto the lake of mist, testing it's weight._ It's okay,_ he wanted to yell. _I'll be fine._

Behind them, his ship laid in ruins. The screams of terrible monsters echoed from the propped up doors where they were supposed to- no, they had to come out- to meet their friends. And save them. Save the world. Save _everybody_.

How could they save the world if they couldn't even save themselves?

_Too late for me_, he thought. _I can not be saved._

The _Argo II _ relentlessly batters the hull against the doors, stuck between the one side, the front along with Festus encased in the other side- the Tartarus side. Slowly the parts chip apart like peeling paint on a faded wall and he wants to _laugh_. All his hard work, all he was useful for, catches fire, the flames reaching up to the mast.

Then even further, if he strains his vision, he can see the world in flames too.

_They've failed._

Percy and Annabeth are stuck forever in the deepest depths of hell. Olympus fell and burned to the ground. Nico was taken underground and never found.

Piper killed Jason.

Maybe she was hallucinating or taken over by mind control, she slit his throat while the rest of them were sleeping. They found her hours later on the top of the broken mast, hanging by one of the sails and swinging over an icy sea.

He remembered his scream; _"Piper! Piper, get down from there!_"

She turned around and glanced at him with blank eyes. _"I killed him,"_ she said. "_I killed you_." Her hand fell free and she plunged into the water below.

Her body never resurfaced.

Now, he was standing on the edge of the ice where she had fallen in. The others were yelling at him- those who remained, anyways, but he can't hear them, not really.

Somewhere he could still hear her voice, beckoning him to the water. _Come find me,_ she seemed to be saying. _Help me. Save me._

_It's too late to save you too_, Leo thought sadly. _It's too late to save anyone._

His hand reached up to wave at them, maybe to ward them off, or maybe some sort of sick anthology he made up to say goodbye.

_Crack_.

The lake of fog shattered like a broken mirror, dousing him in the coldest water he's ever felt, before the surface swallows him whole and the water turns dark and black. He'd never been a good swimmer. He knows that, even in regular water.

This water isn't normal. He can tell by the way it wraps around him like a tendril of some vicious beast, tugging roughly at his arms and legs.

(No one can hear him scream down here. Neither could they hear the screams of the one before.)

What a horrid way to die, he thought. As if losing wasn't enough.

Black water spilled into his lungs. They don't have to tear his body apart to kill him, he'll die before that. Fire needs oxygen, _he _ needs oxygen, and neither of those are available to him underwater.

He swore the pounding of his heart matched the pounding of a promise; _The end, the end, the end is almost here._

_Don't let it end_, he thought fleetingly. _Don't let _me _ end!_

* * *

_as cold memories drag me down_

_while light will cease and I shall drown_

* * *

"You're so silly," she dunked his head back under the water at the dance in the lake they fell in. Leo came up drenched and splashed her pathetically while she laughed some more. Her hair fell in soaking ringlets around the water, her blue dress soaked.

For a minute Leo was confused. He vaguely remembered pain around his arms from another time, and everything about the scene felt wrong. Like it happened before, but at the same time, like it didn't.

Her lips softly touch his own, his eyes wide in surprise as she dragged him to the end of the water. He's wearing a cheap pair of fancy clothes for a dance, but he doesn't remember where they came from. She's wearing dance clothes too. He can't remember any of it.

Piper distracted him, her eyes sparkling. "Isn't this what you wanted?" she asked, noticing his confused frown as he tried to remember something. Her hands wrap around his neck to pull him closer.

_Isn't this what you wanted?_ The breeze echoed it back. _A life with her, all in your dreams, while you sleep forever?_

She danced her fingers across his frown. "Show me a smile, you silly boy. We're here, together. Nothing can change that."

Even though he doesn't remember most of it, he smiled and thought:

(Oh, but how you don't know it will change.)

* * *

_beneath the starry twilight waves_

_eternal flame, my beating heart stays_

* * *

_Wake up_.

He opened his eyes on command. Somehow he was back on the lake, the fog lake right before he went under. Her voice repeats again, more desperate, broken, and insistent-

_Leo, wake up._

I'm awake, he thought back. He couldn't feel his legs, probably from the cold. His arms refused to move too, like he'd been frozen in a block of ice.

_She's got you_, Piper's voice sounded more panicked. _Just like she got me._

You're dead, Leo snapped in his head. And you went loco-evil and betrayed us. Now I'm going crazy.

He could almost picture her mournful reply._ I'm not dead. Or at least, not yet. I wish I was dead._

What is that supposed to mean? he thought back angrily.

_I'm trapped, Leo. Help me._

Help you? Help you what? I'm trapped in my own body.

_She'll take over_, Piper warned. _Everything will go red. You won't remember anything, except you will kill the others. And when you wake up, you'll be in a white room, white, so much white, whiter than snow. Then you'll start to remember- remember what you've done_. Her breath caught and sobbed. _You'll remember who you killed. And then those who aren't dead will become her next target, destroying us one by one._

That's impossible, Leo said, but he was already starting to feel his vision slip away.

_Don't fight me, hero_, the silky voice purred. _Sleep now. Do not return._

* * *

_the end is nigh, the light is out_

_my darling what has come about_

* * *

She wrapped her hands around his waist and he jumped in surprise. She laughed and kissed his ear. "Surprised you?"

Leo fell out of his chair and scrambled away from her. "P-Piper?" his voice shook. "N-no, impossible."

For a minute her eyes flashed white, and then returned to normal, happy Piper. "What's wrong, sweetie?" her voice filled with genuine concern.

"Y-you stay away from me," Leo pointed an accusing finger at her. "Stop coming into my dreams."

Her smile curled. "But what fun is that? It's just a game, honey."

"It's not real," Leo trembled. "All this time, you've been playing me a fool. All my wishes, all I wished would be okay-"

"Such precious wishes," she purred, pulling her hands up his chest and to his face. He backed into the wall where she trapped him. "You always wanted more from your friend, Piper McLean? And when you wanted your memories back, you got them."

His lip quivered. "I didn't want them like that! How I had to watch them replay in my head and wonder why- that was you!"

"Of course," she hummed, moving up to his ear. She then whispered;

"Why Leo, if this is really a dream, why don't you just wake up?"

* * *

_our lives are twisted cruel and short_

_and fate has come to last resort_

* * *

_Wake up_, her voice said._ Wake up, Leo, wake up._

It was white when he opened his eyes. White white _white_. Almost blinding. Yet he couldn't close his eyes or shy away from it.

"Guess who joined the party," someone grumbled in a corner. Leo floated upwards- _what happened to his body?_- and peered around. Just like the room, the girl in the corner was also wearing white. Her feet were bare and her hair was tidied and unbraided like Aphrodite had worked magic powder on it. Her eyes looked blank, almost dead, staring at the wall.

She sighed once. "What a pity."

"What?" Leo frowned. "Where are we?"

"Dunno." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Maybe one of Gaea's super creepy mind trick rooms. I can't get out."

"What do you mean?" Leo made a face. "There's a door right there?"

She sat up. "Where?"

He pointed to the wall. "Right there. Can't you see it?"

Her shoulders sank like a note that needed a decrescendo. "No. I am not allowed to leave."

"Says who?"

She shook her head. "She said so. I can never leave."

"What happened to us?"

"We lost," Piper said simply. She uncrossed her arms again and leaned back against the wall. "We've lost everything."

"Not yet." Leo said. Something about the way Piper talked seemed off. Either because she was so depressed that everything was over, or she simply had given up. "We haven't lost yet."

"Yes we have," she closed her eyes. "We are dead."

Leo's image turned sideways, like one side of a cracked mirror. From his left eye, Piper sat in the corner of the white room, and through the right he saw flames and terror in a pair of golden eyes.

_"Leo," Hazel cried. "Leo, what are you going?"_

_His voice sounded gravelly, not his own, and he wasn't opening his mouth. "Foolish child. You trust too much in friends. Now you shall die by the hands of one."_

_"You killed Frank," Hazel sobbed. "If you kill me, you kill him too. I won't let you do that. I'm sorry."_

_"Hazel_," Leo spoke through both sides. He felt his words growing with confidence when he realized he could speak. Somehow he managed to break his awareness. _"Hazel, run. She's taken over. Run. Run, dammit, run_!"

Her eyes flashed silver in the sudden gold and red in the next. Fire blanketed his hands and the vision of her disconnected, except the sound of her terrified scream.

Somewhere, Leo knew that wherever he was, Frank would have dropped dead on deck. And Hazel would have sat scorched while he lay in his misery in a white room with white feelings and white noise.

_Something was off about Piper..._ He remembered his last dream about Piper. The one where she wasn't real. The voice in his head reminded. _How do you know she is still that girl you used to know?_

He really wished he didn't see it, but the blank, white, dead look in her eyes looked strange enough. And the dead tone of her voice. It could have been another one of Gaea's tricks.

His feet trembled. A dagger materialized in the air and into his tight grasp. It shouldn't be this easy, to kill one of Gaea's little schemes. What if he was wrong? What if he actually killed her?

On their own command, his legs moved forward. Every instinct told him to run, run far away, like he'd told Hazel, up until the moment his body betrayed him and killed her too. _What if he was wrong?_

_No time for error_, his mind commanded. _There is no room for being wrong._

He raised the silver dagger above her back.

She turned. Her eyes widened, showing more emotion than what she had given him since he woke up. "Leo? Leo, what are you-?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I can't trust anyone now."

With a sickening crack the hilt crushed her spine, while the red stained the white room. Her neck snapped down and she fell onto the ground, while he was left to step back in horror of what his paranoia had brought him. Soon all the walls turned red, and the ceiling, and everything was dripping, drowning him in blood.

Piper lay limp, until a furious crack fixed her spine and her neck spun around the wrong way. Her eyes turned ghastly pale and then started to glow a violent white. "_You should know to trust your friend_s," her voice cackled in a voice that was Piper's, yet also not Piper's. "_Sleep, hero, and die in agony."_

He shut his eyes as the wretched stench of iron plugged his nose. The red swam over his eyes in tidal waves and engulfed him like the sea; and it all remained red until the red turned into black.

* * *

_twilight embers dying slowly_

_as to why my memories awake_

* * *

She kissed him first, and then backed off. He almost slipped and fell off the roof.

"I-" she started to say, when he grabbed her and kissed her back. She kept swaying while they danced, the meteors in the sky still sailing behind them like falling angels.

He remembered it was fake. He remembered none of it was real.

(Although, from the memories he stole back, some of it actually was.)

He didn't want to go back. He wanted to keep dreaming. Never wake to see reality again.

Her lips drew back as one of the meteors drew closer.

"Piper," he wanted to say. "I love you-"

The meteor fell, fiery, full of light, and ripped him from this life.

* * *

_by day by night I dream of us_

_although not real my heart does ache_

* * *

_Wake up, Leo, wake up._

He awoke to the sound of snapping.

There were voices too, astonished ones. Some of them were full of fear. Or apprehension, he couldn't be sure.

He felt cold; colder than he had ever felt before. It was also dark.

A strobe light picked up in his vision, along with several terrified voices. "Oh my gods! He's _alive_!"

He wished he wasn't.

The icy feeling coated his chest like poison; he didn't know those voices. He didn't recognize any of them.

"..._frozen in the ship_..." he heard one of them murmur. "_Found inside the Argo II_..."

He struggled to breathe when something heavy fell off his chest and gasped for air. It stung in his lungs like tiny silver daggers into his back. The air smelled cold all in itself; cold like the dark side of the moon.

Someone helped him to seat upwards. Then they poured cold water down his throat. It burned his lips like he was trying to kiss a flame. He sputtered and choked.

A dark shadow passed over him. "Who are you?" A girl's voice demanded.

He raised his head and saw a girl with a silver silhouette standing over him, a silver crown and piercing blue eyes. He knew the sharp nose and the piercing eyes.

"Thalia," he choked. "Thalia, save me."

Her expression morphed into terror. "It _can't_ be you. No. I _can't_ be."

"Kill me," he said raspily, sliding off the block of ice he'd been encased in. "Please, _kill_ me."

"What happened to my brother?" she asked quietly at first. His eyes teared up in pain, his vision fading again. His heart beat frantically in his chest, counting the beats until the last.

"Leave," he croaked. "She's here, she'll kill all of you."

"Where is my brother?" she demanded, louder.

"He's dead," Leo choked. "They're all dead, except for me. And you're immortal, it's been centuries since he died. You know that. I want to die, please, kill me."

Couldn't she see the desperation in his eyes? Please, dammit, _kill me!_

Thalia raised her bow almost autonomously, her clear eyes remaining set on his face, almost contempt, or maybe disgust.

Off to the side, he swore he saw a girl made of golden light. Her eyes twinkled with familiarity, kaleidoscope frames and choppy braids. She smiled and offered him her hand.

He closed his eyes.

She let the arrow fly.

* * *

_someday you'll wake and find me gone_

_but light will finally break in everlasting dawn_

* * *

He held her hand, the golden sun still over the horizon.

"I want it to last forever," he mumbled.

Piper sighed. "It's time to let go. Elysium is gone. We're simply stuck in between."

"You waited for me," Leo said. "Why?"

"I remembered," she said. "You did too, I know you did."

The gold light faded. The empty landscape where he had once died sat before them, the blood still fresh on the snow and the vague smell of lingering ash in the air. The hull of the bronze ship lay in the distance in traces of the skeleton of an elephant graveyard. They made no sign of their presence, as if they didn't exist.

Leo blinked. The scene dissolved like paper into water.

As if by choice, they appeared back in the white room. The door in front of them unlocked the handle.

Piper took his hand. "Ready?" she asked.

Leo gripped it tighter and breathed in. "I'm ready. I love you." He said the last part as more like a promise.

"I love you too," she said, and the door opened as if by command. "It's time we go."

"Not a dream?" Leo asked. "We've lost- everyone is dead. I'm dead. How do I know you're real?"

"It all depends," Piper said as they walked into the door beyond. "I wonder how you might wake up."

* * *

_sing me, sing me a sweet siren remedy_

_I don't ever want to wake_

* * *

His hands brushed against the cold marble. The air was filled with the smell of blood- probably hers.

She's dead. He knows she is.

Still, the golden girl appears in the shadows like she always does, offering her hand.

There's an arrow through his head, but the goddess just won't let him _die_. _Not yet_.

On the other side, suddenly he smiled. He can see her offering his hand to him again, and this time he takes it. The gold shadow of himself smiles back at him, beckoning him, taking him from the snow and ice and blood and echoes of the dead ghosts that haunted those bitter stinging winters.

He closed his eyes. Took her hand, still smiling, and he feels light, like he could float up into the sky as if he had become a weightless balloon. Up into the atmosphere and vanish forever.

This time, he actually fell asleep into the darkness. And at the end of the darkness, he saw the golden light welcoming him at the end of the tunnel.

The siren sang her mournful farewell.

* * *

_sing me a sweet siren melody_

_my old life gone, this one you may take_

_sing to me, sing me a memory_

_sing to me until the day that I may wake_

_sing to me forever_

_until the eternal dawn shall break_


End file.
